Today’s forecast is further evidence this winter has been one of the more comfortable ones in memory.

Temperatures hit 70 degrees in The Big Apple this afternoon. New Yorkers are taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather before a cold front moves in, bringing with it the possibility of heavier rain this weekend, according to CBS 2 Meteorologist John Elliott.

The cold front is expected to roll in at around 9-10 p.m. bringing heavy rain overnight.

“Plants will develop their buds and leaves based on the outside temperatures and the signals they get from nature. I think, at the end of the day, it’s going to mean that we’re going to have an earlier spring in terms of lilacs and forsythia and other plants blooming and starting to leaf out,” he told WCBS 880’s Pat Farnack. “Barring a real deep freeze that kicks in that might cause some damage to flower buds.”

“Is there anything we can do to preserve the buds or anything like that or we should just let nature take its course?” asked Farnack.

“Really, there’s nothing that you can do. You really can’t control the weather. You can’t control Mother Nature. If there was a prediction for a really heavy deep freeze or a dramatic reversal and you had a plant or an area that you really wanted to protect on a temporary basis overnight, you could protect it by wrapping it, if it was bulbs coming up through the ground, put a towel over them,” answered Hicks.

He said the park drive was more crowded than normal around the noon hour. “Very crowded. If you walk over to the reservoir, it’s very crowded. A lot of people out,” he said. “It’s a good day to call in sick.”

What do you make of the warm weather? Sound off in our comments section below.